Deploy and Host Hermes Agent on Railway

Hermes Agent is an autonomous AI agent by Nous Research that lives on your server, connects to your messaging channels (Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc.), and gets more capable the longer it runs. It functions as a persistent backend service that interacts entirely through these messaging platforms.

About Hosting Hermes Agent

Hosting Hermes Agent on Railway involves deploying a containerized environment that manages both an Admin Dashboard and the Hermes gateway subprocess. The architecture requires a persistent Railway volume mounted at /data to store configurations, session histories, and user pairing data. This template simplifies the process by providing a web-based UI to manage providers, channels, and live logs, eliminating the need for manual configuration file editing.

Common Use Cases

Autonomous Support Bot: Providing 24/7 automated assistance on Telegram, Discord, etc.
Persistent AI Coding Partner: Integrating with GitHub to assist in development workflows via messaging channels.
Private AI Gateway: Creating a secure, approved-user-only access point to powerful LLMs for a small team or family.

Dependencies for Hermes Agent Hosting

LLM Provider Key: A valid API key (e.g., OpenRouter, OpenAI) is required to power the agent's logic.
Messaging Channel Access: A bot token (e.g., Telegram Bot Token) to allow the agent to communicate.

Deployment Dependencies

Railway Account — Cloud hosting platform.
OpenRouter — Recommended for unified access to multiple LLM providers.
Hermes Agent Source — The core autonomous agent framework.

Implementation Details

1. Get an LLM Provider Key (free)

Register for free at OpenRouter.
Create an API key from your OpenRouter dashboard.
Pick a free model from the model list sorted by price (e.g., google/gemma-3-1b-it:free).

2. Set Up a Telegram Bot

Message @BotFather on Telegram → /newbot → copy the Bot Token.
Find your Telegram user ID via @userinfobot.

3. Deploy to Railway

Click the Deploy on Railway button above.
Set the ADMIN_USERNAME and ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variables.
Open your app URL and log in with your credentials.

4. Configure in the Admin Dashboard

LLM Provider: Select OpenRouter, paste your API key, and enter the model name.
Messaging Channel: Enable Telegram and paste the Bot Token.
Click Save & Start to launch the gateway.

5. Check Status & Logs

Monitor the gateway state and uptime via status cards.
Watch live logs to debug and monitor agent activity in real-time.

6. Start Chatting

Message your bot on Telegram. A pairing request will appear in the dashboard under Users; click Approve to begin.

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
`PORT`	`8080`	Web server port (set by Railway)
`ADMIN_USERNAME`	`admin`	Basic auth username
`ADMIN_PASSWORD`	`changeme`	Basic auth password

Why Deploy Hermes Agent on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.

By deploying Hermes Agent on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.